Horses

Look At Me, I’m A Spider!

Posted on October 20, 2013 by Debora

The river trail where I ride Mahogany is quite the safari adventure. On yesterday’s ride we saw cows…

…and a llama.

I’ve actually seen the llama before. There’s a bridge that crosses the Trinity not far from where I keep Mahogany, and I was driving across it one day and glanced down and saw a group of horses and the llama hanging out in the river. Appparently they just roam free down there.

The weather was glorious this weekend, so the kids and I decided to explore more of Colleyville. We started out at an antique store, which had some pretty cool stuff. Texans like their taxidermied animal parts, yo. And Elizabeth spread a little holiday cheer:

That’s my girl. (And if you don’t get the joke, it’s referencing this.)

Okay, this is terrifying, right? It’s not just me?

Stuff of nightmares right there.

After the antique store we wandered around near the library, just because we like the way the buildings look in that area.

Found some random donkeys.

Then we found a park and explored that. It has a playground with this amazing thing like a giant spherical spiderweb. The kids and I reverted to age 12 and frolicked for a while.

The whole park is really nice.

We were walking around the pond and I saw what looked like the body of a dead snake in the grass. The scene went something like, “Oh look, a snake! Oh, it’s dead. Is it dead? It looks dead.” [Nudge snake with toe of shoe, snake doesn’t move.] “No, it’s dead. It — holy crap, it’s moving!” [Fumble for camera as disgruntled snake heaves irritable sigh and slithers into the water.]

Sorry for being a jerk, snake dude. I thought you were dead.

I read somewhere that DFW is the one place in the United States where you are most likely to be impacted by a natural disaster. Hurricanes, tornadoes, hail, floods, wind, everything but earthquakes. I’m probably jinxing myself, but aside from the summer heat and a few inconveniently-timed thunderstorms I’ve seen nothing but beautiful weather here. Have I just not been here long enough? Is the winter dark and full of terrors? Guess I’ll find out soon enough.

Categories: Animals, Family, Horses, kids, Life, trail rides, Weather, Wildlife | 2 Comments

Suddenly: Autumn

Posted on October 13, 2013 by Debora

The weather here has turned to fall. It rains at least once a week, usually on the weekends. This is mildly frustrating, because weekends are when the kids and I do our exploring, and we’ve been mostly limited to indoor stuff for awhile now.

Elizabeth and I went to see “Gravity,” and liked it a lot. If you haven’t seen it, and plan to, do see it in 3D. This movie is all about the visual spectacle, it’s incredibly immersive.

As we were walking from the parking lot to the theater entrance, I had a déjà vu moment. I stopped and looked around, trying to figure out why I felt like I’d been to that theater before (I hadn’t), and then I realized that it wasn’t the theater I recognized but the Italian restaurant next to it. The kids and I had met up with friends there for dinner on our road trip in 2007, and had a fantastic time. Got a nice little rush of nostalgia looking at it.

So, speaking of restaurants, this seems like a good time to mention that I have a very minor complaint about Texas, or at least my little corner of it. The Chinese food. It is not like California Chinese food. I’m not saying it’s better or worse, it’s just not what I’m used to. Okay, it’s worse. There, I said it. I miss orange chicken that tastes right and has the right texture.

But! Elizabeth and I tried Genghis Grill after our movie, and that was great. Does Genghis Grill count as Asian food? What I like about it is that I can put together the kind of meal I used to eat fresh from the garden back in Anza, and then someone else cooks it for me. Sweet!

Mahogany’s winter coat is growing in dark and glossy. I’m surprised at how well she’s doing just on pasture grass and coastal hay. No alfalfa, no grain, but she’s shiny and bursting with energy.

On our last ride we were accosted near the river trail by a wandering-loose group of horses.

Sorry for the blurry, they caught me by surprise.

Oddly enough, Mahogany wanted nothing to do with them. She just wanted to get back to her own buddies in her own pasture. I shooed the strange horses off, and they left us alone.

We’re still working on Mahogany’s reluctance to leave her herd-mates. I mean, I’m glad that she loves her new home and her new friends, but her unwillingness to EVER leave them is getting tiresome. It would be easier if we could find someone to ride with, but so far I haven’t seen any other riders out on the trails.

I don’t have any wildlife pics for this post, but I did see the biggest coyote I have ever seen a couple weeks ago. I was driving and didn’t have time to whip out my camera, but this guy was huge. Living large on suburban life, I guess.

The DFW area is such a beautiful paradox. I love that it looks like this…

…and this…

…and this.

I love the laid-back, down-to-earth vibe, and the fact that jeans, boots and tee-shirts are considered perfectly fashionable attire here. I love that most of the people, including the teens I’ve seen at my kids’ new schools, actually make an effort to look clean and wholesome rather than sexy or dangerous. I love how friendly nearly everyone is.

If I could just get some decent orange chicken here, this place would be pretty close to perfect.

Categories: Animals, Family, food, Horses, kids, Life, Road trip, trail rides, Weather, Wildlife | Tags: coyote, Genghis Grill, Gravity | Leave a comment

Exploration

Posted on September 21, 2013 by Debora

This morning Mahogany and I took our first trail ride since she arrived here. She has always had a strong preference for the company of other horses, but it was never a huge issue until this morning when I tried to ride her away from her new pasture mates. I had an honest-to-goodness fight on my hands. I finally opted to dismount and lead her off to the trailhead and out of sight of the herd and stables. This basically just relocated the fight instead of ending it, but at least it was just the two of us there with no human or equine witnesses to the struggle. Having a battle of wills with your horse in front of curious onlookers is like dealing with a tantruming toddler in a grocery store…it’s just awkward no matter how you handle it.

So anyway, I led her through the back gate and remounted, and the battle resumed, and I eventually won. And once I got her onto the river trail and she was basically locked onto the path, we had a really lovely ride. The flipside of Mahogany’s willfulness is her bold fearlessness, which makes her a wonderful exploring companion.

At a couple of places along the trail we found cows sheltering in the brush.

(For the curious: I always try to include bits of horse in the photos I take from horseback. That’s how I tell my trail ride pics apart from my hiking pics.)

When we looped back into the pasture, Mahogany set up for another fight. She wanted to run straight to her buddies, and I wanted to remind her who was steering by making her walk around the perimeter of the pasture. That ended up being more of a heated argument than an actual battle, and then she remembered that I’m even more stubborn than she is and did her laps without any more fuss. But I can see that this will be our first training project here: Mahogany needs to learn to leave the herd behind whenever I ask her to, without a struggle.

Luke and Elizabeth and I have fallen into a pattern of exploring at least one new thing every weekend, and today we investigated the Colleyville Library. We found it nestled in a village with a remarkably Southern California vibe. The whole setting reminded us of a cross between the Mission Inn area of Riverside and Disneyland’s Main Street USA.

While the Hurst Library is still our reigning favorite, the Colleyville Library is far and away the prettiest one we’ve seen in the Metroplex so far.

One of these days I’m going to just drive around and take pictures of all of my favorite buildings in the Mid-Cities area, and post them. There is some crazy beautiful architecture here.

I freaking love this place.

Categories: Animals, environment, Family, Horses, kids, Life, trail rides | Leave a comment

Mahogany’s Big Adventure

Posted on September 12, 2013 by Debora

So it turns out that relocating a horse from one state to another is kind of a big production. Just to transport a horse across a state line requires a vet check and a Coggins test (for equine infectious anemia; horses who test positive must be euthanized or quarantined for the rest of their lives) and a certificate of good health. Before the vet can inspect and test the horse and fill out the health certificate, he has to have the address that the horse will be moving to, the name of the person or company who will be transporting the horse, and the date on which the horse will be leaving the state of origin. I didn’t have any of that information when I left California, so I left Mahogany in the care of a friend while the kids and I made the move to Texas.

Finding a place to board her here was more of a challenge than I expected, but I finally found a beautiful place about ten miles from where we’re living. The facility’s full-service care is a bit out of my price range, but I only need space in their pasture. Mahogany would be miserable standing in a barn stall anyway.

The most affordable option for transporting her was to use a national company that basically does nothing but drive big rigs back and forth across the country, picking up and dropping off horses along the way. There was some uncertainty about whether there would be room for Mahogany on the next California run or whether she would have to wait another two weeks, but at the last minute another horse canceled out and Mahogany got his spot.

These big companies operate on a crazy schedule. They picked Mahogany up in the wee hours of Tuesday morning and dropped her off in the wee hours of this morning (Thursday). I guess that’s how they keep their prices low, though — just keep moving 24/7.

I went to see her this morning. She looks very content in her new pasture with her new herd of friends. An enormous draft horse seems to have taken her under his wing. She has a few minor scrapes and she looks a little dehydrated, but that’s not unusual after a long trip like that and then settling in with unfamiliar horses in an unfamiliar place.

I led her to the water trough and she drank deep; I’m not sure she had known where it was before I showed her. I don’t want to ride her until she’s had a chance to recover from the stress of the trip and get settled in, so instead I took her for a walk to explore the new digs. Her pasture borders the Trinity river, so we headed that way and walked along the riverbank for a while.

The river trail isn’t nearly as domesticated there as it is in the area that the kids and I hiked a couple weeks ago; it’s actually kind of overgrown and jungly. I unintentionally walked through a web that belonged to this beast:

The photo doesn’t do him justice; he was huge.

We also came across the skeleton of some unfortunate horse.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him not, Mahogany.

The bugs are more plentiful here, and she’s still getting used to them. After we came back from our walk I watched her at liberty in her pasture for a while, and she did a lot of tail-swishing, self-grooming and fence-rubbing.

But she’s very plainly happy; other than mild annoyance at the insects she’s showing no signs of stress at all.

It’s a huge relief to finally have her here. It feels like being able to exhale after holding my breath for a month.

Categories: Animals, Horses, Life, Wildlife | Leave a comment

At Year’s End

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Debora

My poor neglected blog. I see that the last time I posted here was in August, and here we are on the last day of December. I can’t use the excuse that nothing’s been happening, because 2012 has pretty much consisted of one life-changing event after another. In fact, so many wonderful and terrible things have happened this year that I almost failed to notice when a lifelong dream quietly came true a few weeks ago.

In my defense, I’ve been a bit distracted. Let’s look at the scorecard, shall we?

In 2012 I wrote the complete outline and about 90% of the first draft of what I hope will become my first published novel. It’s going to be amazing once it’s polished up.

In 2012 I lost a cherished friend of 24 years. That was…difficult.

In 2012 I finally realized that trying to keep the peace by endlessly accommodating my ex-husband’s escalating demands was not only futile, but actively counterproductive. It only made him see me as weak, an easy target for bullying. 2012 was the year I stood my ground.

In 2012 hate and violence were brought to my doorstep, presumably to teach me a lesson about standing my ground. If that was their intention, it backfired.

In 2012 I realized there’s not much that scares me anymore.

In 2012 some other important things happened that I’m either not comfortable talking about on my blog, or that I’m not at liberty to post here.

So you can see why it almost slipped past me unnoticed, this small but significant accomplishment.

But yesterday it hit me: I am now a paid writer. It’s not the way I’d always planned, and one unfortunate tradeoff is that my novel has been moved to a back burner as I write informative articles, product descriptions, how-to guides and so on. But people are giving me money to conjure words in my head and write them down, and that is momentous. I can now officially call myself a writer, and not feel like a fraud. I am paying bills with money that I earned writing down words. People, that is one big fat checkmark on my shortlist of life goals.

So farewell, 2012. You were not always kind nor gentle, but I have emerged from your flames a stronger, braver and wiser person. And I have emerged A Writer. For real.

Happy New Year, everyone. Here’s hoping 2013 brings us all a few more granted wishes and a little less of the other stuff.

Categories: books, Family, Fiction, Horses, kids, Life, Love | Tags: writing | Leave a comment